The fact that political campaigns in contemporary western democracies are fully professionalized seems to be unchallenged. Yet, the empirical evidence concerns few advanced democracies and mainly the main governing parties. We know little about the characteristics of political campaigns in recent democracies, as well as their main features in terms of political communication. This article aims to tackle these issues by examining the Portuguese case, a recent democracy characterized by relatively weak parties, television-centred communication and low levels of partisanship. In order to explore the features of political campaigns, this article draws on original data from both party elite interviews and a candidate survey for the 2009 legislative elections. The results show a relatively low degree of professionalization, especially in terms of marketing outlook. Overall, the findings provide support for hybrid models of campaign communication and suggest that political and institutional factors have important effects for party organization and communication tools.
Greece, Portugal and Spain are among the countries worst hit by the 2008 Great Recession, with significant electoral and political turmoil since then. However, one of the dimensions in which they differ is the presence and varieties of populism in parties' political proposals. Drawing on holistic coding of party manifestos, we assess the varying presence of populist features in mainstream and challenging parties before and after the 2008 economic downturn. Our empirical findings show that populism is significantly higher in Greece compared to Spain and Portugal. We do not find a significant impact of the crisis as the degree of populism remains rather stable in Greece and Portugal, while it increases in Spain, mainly due to the rise of new populist forces. In addition, inclusionary populism is the predominant flavour of populist parties in new Southern Europe, although exclusionary populism is present to a lesser extent in the Greek case. Finally, we contend the national context-namely the ideological legacy of parties and the strategic options of party leadership-, is crucial for explaining crosscountry variation in the intensity of populism and the specific issues that characterise populist discourse.
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